Claire McCaskill

Sen. McCaskill Used Office Funds To Pay For Chartered Flights--On Plane She Partly Owns

Melissa Jeltsen | March 9, 2011, 4:48PM

Last month, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) introduced legislation to crack down on government-paid foreign travel taken by lawmakers, calling it a "lax system that has led to abuses in the past." In 2009, she criticized the House Appropriations Committee for adding money to buy jets for government use. Now, her travel history is coming under scrutiny.

According to a report by Politico, McCaskill has spent nearly $76,000 in public funds since 2007 to fly on a private plane owned by her and her husband.

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Topics: Claire McCaskill

Stop Too Big To Fail

Rent-A-Front: New Group Wages Stealth Battle Against Wall Street Reform

Justin Elliott | April 21, 2010, 2:50PM

In the last few weeks, a new player entered the financial reform fray with a $1.6 million ad buy, a respected economist on board, a blitz of opinion columns on left-leaning websites, and a message, cooked right into the group's name -- Stop Too Big To Fail -- that liberals could love.

But as TPMmuckraker has looked into the group, every indication is that Stop Too Big To Fail is an astroturf operation funded by corporate interests to give the appearance of grassroots opposition to reform.

The group's leader has a long history running a rent-a-front operation: offering up his services to large corporations who are willing to pay top dollar for a "consumers group" that will engage in stealth advocacy on behalf of industry. The group refuses to divulge its funding sources. The respected economist whose support the group touts now says he was deceived. And Stop Too Big To Fail has links to DCI Group, one of Washington's best-known astroturf operators.

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Topics: Astroturf, California Small Business Association, Claire McCaskill, Consumers Voice, Consumers for Cable Choice, Consumers for Competitive Choice, DCI Group, Harry Reid, Jim Conran, League of United Latin American Citizens, Mark Warner, Robert K. Johnson, Sam Zamarripa, Simon Johnson, Stop Too Big To Fail

Military Contractors

McCaskill On Afghan War Contractors: 'We're Competing Against Ourselves'

Justin Elliott | December 16, 2009, 5:40PM

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) said today that the military may be paying Afghan contractors so much that they are dissuaded from joining the country's army or police force, dealing a blow to the American strategy of building up local forces.

We reported earlier this week that as many as 56,000 new contractors will be hired as Obama escalates the war. Most of the 104,100 DOD contractors currently working in Afghanistan are local nationals providing logistical, transportation, security, and other support.

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Topics: Afghanistan, Claire McCaskill, Contractors, Defense Contractors, Defense Department, Military Contractors, Senate Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight

Defense Contractors

Oversight Reports Slam Dysfunction At Defense Contract Audit Agency

Justin Elliott | September 30, 2009, 10:08AM

The office in charge of auditing Pentagon contracts is beset by incompetence and possibly malfeasance that has allowed big defense contractors to line their pockets at taxpayer expense, according to two new government oversight reports.

Last year, the obscure but important arm of the federal government called the Defense Contract Audit Agency looked at $501 billion in contractor costs.

Which is, as it sounds, a pretty important job. But the DCAA isn't doing the job so well, concludes the Defense Department's Inspector General, whose 96-page report on the DCAA was unsealed yesterday and can be read here (.pdf), and the Government Accountability Office, whose own damning report is here.

Let's look at a case that shows how auditor malfeasance can line the pockets of big defense contractors with millions in taxpayer dollars.

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Topics: Boeing, Claire McCaskill, Defense Contract Audit Agency, Defense Contractors, Defense Department, Government Accountability Office